Do me a favor: if you're planning to buy a Tim Tebow jersey now that he's pulled up stakes and moved to New York to play next season for the Jets, at least consider giving that money instead to the Human Rights Commission, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), or to Planned Parenthood.
Faced with having to refight the culture wars and defend basic human dignity, these groups need the money more than the Jets or Tebow do. Actually, Tebow is on the list of the narrow-minded people and entities they'll need your money to fight.
I'll leave it for ESPN analysts and high school football coaches to discuss how someone with such limited skills can be said to be ready to compete with Mark Sanchez for the starting job. Yet it should be noted that in the fevered rush to anoint Tebow the next Joe Namath (is this one ever off the mark), we've put aside for the moment criticism of his windmill throwing motion, the wobbly spirals often uncorked off the wrong foot, and the watered down Broncos playbook.
Our focus here is how the news media thus far have looked past Tebow's bigotry in favor of incessant prattle about his marketing prowess, set against a distinct "innocents abroad" backdrop (insert your favorite thinly veiled Sodom and Gomorrah reference here). Before you grab the remote and the chips this fall, consider: Tebow believes that homosexuality is wrong and can be cured. He believes women should be submissive. His father is involved with an organization that works in the Philippines to convert Catholics to its intolerant brand of evangelical Christianity. An organization whose followers believe that not being circumcised is a one-way ticket to hell.
But all of this is swept aside as the media marvel at Tebow's marketability; before he's taken a snap in New York, he's on billboards for Under Armour. Companies are purportedly tripping over each other to monetize his fresh-scrubbed looks. "Tebowing" will soon become an Olympic sport at this rate. He's our latest "instant icon" - just add hype, downplay his warts, and stir.
Tebow is only the latest zealot to benefit from the media's tendency to water down destructive piety in the name of ratings and spectacle. They go to extremes to protect extremes. Every minor chapter in the lives of the Duggars, stars of TLC's "19 Kids and Counting" is played out for maximum effect, yet I haven't heard The Today Show's Ann Curry ask if their conservatively dressed daughters in the family will ever have the chance to live their own lives instead of being conscripted to take care of their siblings. We wonder how the egotistical dude in Sister Wives puts up with three wives, and then adds another. Reporters soft-pedal the regressive misogynist views of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum. We allow journalists to recast his ideas as "controversial," rather than insist that they call these folks out for what they are.
And if you're reading Rick, this isn't an attack on religion or religious freedom - it's a earnest plea to the media to properly identify and explain religious extremism. I do agree, however, with the very talented sportswriter Dave Zirin, who argues the reaction to Tebow would be much more muted if he was a Muslim. He wouldn't be allowed anywhere near Ground Zero, that's for sure.
The "train wreck" excuse - we're all voyeurs - holds only so much water, as does the media's contention that we have an unquenchable thirst for spectacle. Maybe it's our love of "Mad Men." But do we really want to celebrate an era when women couldn't even see the glass ceiling? Now do we get why it was such a cultural misstep to claim Ally McBeal represented a new brand of feminism? I think mainly it's a matter of folks in the media not wanting to offend anyone - an idea which is ironically a product of their belief, expressed in so many media narratives, that everyone is easily offended.
So instead of helping Tebow out with his PR, talk to your kids about how freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. Talk with them about pushing back against the zealots and the fear-mongers.
And whatever you do, put that Tebow jersey back on the rack or move on to another page at NFL.com. Buy defensive lineman's Marcus Dixon's #94 jersey instead. He's the young man whose racially motivated conviction and mandatory 10-year sentence for statutory rape was overturned in 2004 by the Georgia Supreme Court. Dixon and his adoptive parents relentlessly fought this "legal lynching," to use Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman's words.
Spend your money on someone who has fought rather than condones injustice.
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